Unfinished Fragments
by The Inimitable DA
Summary: There was indeed a god in this world, and he apparently liked dance parties filled with buffet tables and crappy jazz. Soul and Maka meet for the first time. One of a series of drabbles, snippets and the like from stories I abandoned. Mostly SoulxMaka.
1. Fragment 01

**Unfinished Fragments**

**By DarkAngel**

_Disclaimer: _I don't own Soul Eater. It belongs to Atsushi Ohkubo, it does. I'm just borrowing his characters for a spot of fluffy fun.

* * *

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Death Scythe had known it might come to this. No matter how he had struggled, or how he had tried to make excuses in his mind, he'd had the feeling things might end up like this.

The words were still reverberating in his head, the echoes of the declaration bouncing from one corner of his brain to another.

"I'm going to ask Maka to marry me."

The younger scythe stood there before him, hands in his pockets, looking far too calm for Spirit's liking. He'd grown over the years so that he was now the same height as Spirit. His red eyes looked straight at him, unwavering. Though he looked relaxed with his shoulders slumped and his weight leaning against the countertop, Death Scythe knew the boy was determined. Whether he said yes or no, he was still going to lose his little girl.

_He remembered when Maka and Soul had started dating. Well, not exactly. He'd walked in on them – entirely by accident. Ugh, it wasn't as though he'd _wanted_ to see that. He'd heard Maka's voice and had been intending to say hello. He hadn't _expected _to see them trading spit and Soul's hand creeping up her skirt. _

_When he'd come to, Maka had been putting a wet towel on his head, her eyebrows furrowed in concern. _

_"Ah, Papa! You're awake."_

_It took several seconds for the chain of events leading to his collapse to catch up with him. Then he bolted up, unheeding of the towel that plopped wetly on his trousers, and grabbed Maka by the shoulders._

_"Maka! My darling, are you all right?!" He looked her over carefully, searching for who knows what. Hickeys? Bruises? Blood? He nearly fainted again at that last thought. Surely they wouldn't have gotten that far?? _

_"I'm all right." Maka picked up the towel he'd dropped, wringing it out once before she opened her mouth. "So, I guess you know."_

_Spirit nodded mutely. Maka took a deep breath. "I'm sorry you had to see that."_

_He wasn't sure why exactly she was apologizing about that, but he nodded again anyway. He tried to speak, but his throat wouldn't cooperate. He wet his lips, tried again. _

_"Maka…" His voice was a croaky whisper. Great. Just great. He was supposed to be her dad, not a desiccated frog. "How long…?"_

_"About a month." She sat down. "Look, Papa…"_

_"H-Have you…" He made a vague gesture, though it was obvious, judging by the furrow that appeared in Maka's brow, she had no clue what he was getting at. Gulping through the rock that had suddenly appeared in his throat, he made another brave stab at it. "Are the two of you sleeping together?" There. He hadn't stuttered this time. Not much, anyway. _

_Maka flushed. The way she dropped her gaze told Death Scythe all he needed to know. _

_"Maka, you're 15! You're far too young to be doing things like this and –" He suddenly remembered the other factor in this equation. "Where is that bastard? I'll kill him! I'll -!!" _

_"Papa!"Maka's voice cracked like a whip. He cringed belatedly when he realized she was brandishing a book over his head. Where did she pull those things out from, anyway?_

_"It's none of your business what I do with Soul." Her voice was low, humming with an edge that could probably cut through titanium. It was certainly doing a good job of cutting through flesh and bone, Spirit thought as a sharp pain blossomed in his chest. She was sounding more like her mother with each passing day. _

_"It is my business," he said. He straightened up and his voice grew stern. "Maka, what if you become pregnant –"_

_"Then Soul and I will accept that responsibility." Maka's voice was uncompromising. "Again, not that it's any of your business, but I'm on birth control."_

_He supposed he ought to have known. Maka would be careful, but that still didn't comfort him. It wasn't just that his daughter was having sex with the demon scythe that bothered him. He didn't want his little girl getting hurt. Who knew better than him what men and their hormones would do in the heat of the moment? He tried to convey this to Maka, but he didn't get far. There was a thump from the other room, and Soul came in. If Spirit didn't know better, he'd have suspected the boy had been listening from the other room, and it had probably been Maka who had told him to stay there, knowing what her father's reaction was likely to be. _

_Soul's eyes were hard, uncompromising. He opened his mouth, giving Spirit a glimpse of sharp white teeth. "Look here, Death Scythe. I'm not you. I'm not looking for fun. I've got everything I want right here." He wrapped one arm possessively around Maka's shoulders. His other free hand had jabbed a finger at Death Scythe. "I'm not so stupid that I'll let a good thing go when it's right in front of me."_

_Any retort Spirit could have made died on his lips. Because he could see the boy's eyes. Dead serious and determined. Soul had protected Maka from danger countless times as her weapon. Now he was protecting her as the person he loved._

_There had been nothing he could do. For the next three years he watched their relationship flower and grow, the bond between them growing stronger with each passing year. True to his word, the white-haired scythe stayed faithful to Maka: he hadn't even _looked_ at another woman, something Spirit was jealous of. He wasn't lying when he said he loved Maka and her mother the best, but he knew himself well enough to know that his heart wasn't an exclusive thing. What was it the boy had that he didn't?_

And the boy was holding a ring for him to see, glinting in its velvet case. It was engraved with something Spirit couldn't make out, and he looked askance at Soul.

"It's custom designed. I hope she'll like it."

Spirit took the box from the younger man's outstretched hand. The metal was silver or platinum: he wasn't sure which. The engravings he'd seen, on closer inspection, appeared to be wings which stretched out from the diamond set in the centre. Soul reached out and took the ring out of its box. He turned it over.

The tips of the wings were curled around a circular shape. It looked like a little face with eyes and jagged teeth. Spirit blinked.

"It's me," Soul explained. "And Maka. What our souls look like, according to Professor Stein."

Now that he thought about it, that twisted smile with the jagged teeth did look like Soul. And that meant the winged diamond was –

"Maka," he murmured. An angel's wings. That was his precious baby, through and through.

And then he bristled. "Wait. Stein knew before _I_ did?!"

---

The door to their apartment opened with a click. Maka looked up from her book and smiled at Soul. "Welcome home, she said."

Soul grinned, making his way to the couch. He leaned down and kissed her. Mm. Coffee cake. He looked around and sure enough there was a covered plate on the dining table. "You made cake."

Maka nodded. "Would you like some?" She got up from the couch to cut him a slice. Soul took up the spot she'd vacated, stretching his legs over the edge of the sofa.

"Hey Maka," he called.

"Hm?" She finished cutting and slid a slice onto a new plate.

"Your dad should be the first to know when we have kids."

Death Scythe's reaction to the ring – or rather, finding out he'd been uninformed – had been unnerving. He'd never seen anyone cackle, scream, sob, twitch, convulse and foam at the mouth in the space of a blink.

"Huh?" Maka's face flushed, and she shot him a confused look.

"Just trust me on this. I don't think Death Scythe wants to be institutionalized before his first grandkid is born."

Maka never did find out what he meant by that. But she did remember to tell her Papa when the time came. After all, Soul was right. It wouldn't have done her child any favours, making regular visits to the asylum.

She couldn't even begin to imagine how glad Death Scythe was for that.

* * *

_Author's Notes:_ So this is something that's been lying around on my computer for months. I debated on whether or not I should put it up, but well, here it is. I still think it's a pointless piece, but eh. I do have a buttload of other pieces kind of like this – unfinished, broken snippets of things, if anyone's interested. That's what this fic set is going to be composed from. XP


	2. Fragment 02

**Unfinished Fragments**

**By DarkAngel**

_Disclaimer: _I don't own any of it. The only thing I own is the story idea and Albert, the Evans' music tutor. More details are in the endnotes.

* * *

When Maka met Wes for the first time, she knew immediately, even before they had been introduced, that they were brothers.

It wasn't just that they looked alike – for they certainly did look very much like one another. Looking at Wes, Maka could tell just how Soul would grow into his features. Their colouring was different: where Soul had hair as white as new fallen snow, Wes's hair was more a silvery-blonde. Where Soul's eyes were a piercing deep garnet, Wes's were a kind of brown bordering on amber. Where Soul's teeth were jagged as the zigzags that ran the length of his scythe blade, Wes's were perfectly straight, maintained by the finest in dental technology. But when it came to their basic features, they shared quite a lot. The heavy-lidded eyes, the smile that was just shy of being a smirk, the sharply defined lines of their faces – they were brothers to the blood.

Of course she said none of this to Soul. From the snippets he'd given her throughout the years, she'd come to know that although he respected and loved his brother, on a deeper, darker level, there was something that kept them apart – something that their seven year age difference couldn't explain.

"I can never be the genius my brother is," Soul had stated matter-of-factly that one day when he'd played that song for her. It was said in the same tone as when they'd first met. _This is the kind of person I am_.

Maka knew she knew almost nothing about music. She might have been offended when Soul had made that knock about her musical IQ being low, but the truth was he was right. She knew nothing about quarter notes or accidentals or G chords. All she knew was that she liked what she liked, and above all else she loved Soul's sound. The things he could draw out of that grand instrument when his fingers touched the keys touched her in places she hadn't known existed. She knew his sound was different because she didn't feel that way when Wes played.

The Evans clan had been surprised but pleased to hear from their wayward youngest son. They hadn't in all honesty expected him to come back. From what Maka gathered, Soul's departure had come with much commotion and wrecked emotions. It had taken years for the rift to heal, and years more after that for Soul to admit that his family had only wanted the best for him; he could forgive them now as he couldn't then.

Even so, Soul probably wouldn't have gone back home if it hadn't been for Maka. It was something of an irony, in Soul's opinion. Maka, after all, didn't have the best relationship in the world with her father (which was partly her own doing; Maka had admitted as much herself, though that still didn't change the way she viewed her father) and she was the one that had pushed him to reconcile and make contact with his family once more.

"We're going to start new," Maka had reasoned. "There's no such thing as the perfect family, but I want our kids to know their roots."

Soul was out now, speaking with his parents about some arrangements he wanted to make. That left Maka with Wes, who was tuning the strings on his instrument, looking with an absentminded air at the sheet music in front of him. They hadn't really spoken much. Maka for one wasn't sure what to say, and she didn't really want to interrupt Wes, as he seemed pretty concentrated on his music.

So she watched him instead. His fingers were long and thin, and slightly crooked at the joints, like Soul's. Whenever he'd pluck the occasional string, there would be an arch sound, almost like the polite cough someone used when calling for attention. He'd hold down some strings, slide his bow quickly across the bridge before making another set of adjustments that Maka couldn't identify, but which fascinated her all the same. She'd never seen Soul tuning a piano, but then, they'd never had one in their apartment and any he happened to play at the time had already been set to perfect pitch.

"Soul never really explained why he left." Wes's voice came across clearly over the sounds of his instrument. He didn't look up at her as he spoke, but continued to stare at the sheet music in front of him, as though he were committing each note to memory. For all Maka knew, he probably was.

Maka wasn't sure how to reply. Soul hadn't told her much, after all. All he'd said was that the knowledge that he was a weapon had been his escape. The family whose expectations he could never meet; the brother he could never hope to match or surpass – being a weapon gave him not only the means to enact his escape, but something unique that could not be replicated or held up for comparison.

"I have an idea, of course," Wes continued, when it was clear that Maka wasn't going to put her two cents in. "He was always uncomfortable at the receptions after the recitals and concerts." By now he'd stopped tuning, seemingly satisfied. He held his bow aloft, settling the violin under his chin. He ran through a scale, changed keys and ran through it again. He set the violin down, turning to look at Maka for the first time.

"He didn't like performing, either." He shrugged, and the gesture so reminded Maka of Soul that she had to blink. "I don't see why. He wasn't bad. I liked the way he would play."

This was something Maka could agree with. "I like it too." Wes's mouth quirked.

"Does he play for you often?"

"Soul doesn't like to play, as you say," Maka said. She couldn't really explain that she'd mainly heard him play when their souls were linked; even if Wes and his family understood what Soul was, she didn't think they'd understand the music of Soul Resonance. She'd only ever heard him play out in the 'real world', as it were a handful of times. She could count those times on one hand. When they'd first met. When she'd gone looking for him that one time between classes and found him tinkering something out in the music room. That one time when she'd asked him to play shortly after they'd started going out – it had been her second kiss. And the last time, when he'd proposed to her. "But when he does…" She couldn't finish her sentence. What could she say that wouldn't sound clichéd? That was it was the most beautiful thing she'd heard? That it made her soul tremble to its core? Words were inadequate.

Wes seemed to understand. He turned back to his sheet music and picked up his violin once more. "I hope he teaches your kids to play," was all he said.

"Teach them what?" The door clicked open, admitting the white haired boy-man she loved so dearly.

Wes glanced at Soul through the corner of his eye. His lips curled upwards. "It would be a shame if your talent died with you."

Soul made a derisive noise but nodded in thanks. As he sat, his arm looped around Maka's shoulders. The only sound in the room for several minutes was the violin. Maka rested her head on Soul's shoulder. As the violin segued into another piece, she felt her fiancé's fingers tighten on her shoulder and opened her eyes. Soul was… well, not quite _glaring_ at his brother, but he was definitely tense about something. When the music changed tempo and moved into a lighter tune, Soul growled.

"What are you trying to say?"

Maka blinked, bewildered. She knew that as her musical knowledge stood, that she was missing some implication or joke between the brothers.

Wes raised his eyebrows in what was clearly a challenge. It was the same expression Soul used with her when he challenged her to the occasional bet or game of basketball (even now she still didn't fully get the rules).

"Romanza Andaluza. Sarasate. And then Sakamoto." Soul's voice was flat. "Everything you've been playing since I got here has been the same."

Maka couldn't figure that one out. As far as she knew, all the pieces had been different. Soul must have sensed her confusion because he said, in that same clipped voice, "They're all duets."

She still didn't get it. Soul sighed, an aggravated sound. "They're meant to be played with two instruments."

Well, she wasn't that dumb. She was about to open her mouth to tell him just that, but he beat her to it.

"So what is it you want me to do?" His gaze was locked on his brother, who hadn't changed expression and was still looking at Soul with that, 'Come and try it if you think you're so hard' look. His only answer was to jerk his head at the instrument behind him. The grand piano Maka had noticed upon first entering the room. Soul's gaze followed hers. His scowl deepened.

The staring contest continued for what felt like an eternity. Maka felt Soul's muscles bunch and then he was standing up, hands clenched into fists at his side. Alarmed, she watched him make his way toward his brother. He wasn't going to pop him one, was he? Without thinking, she started to stand.

Wes seemed unperturbed by his brother's outburst. He only smiled. "I can't do it alone, Soul."

Soul stood over him, fists clenching and unclenching. Maka held out a hand, as though she could stop whatever was happening between them with the gesture. But then he turned away, stalking not back to Maka or out of the room, but for the grand black instrument sitting off in the corner. He stared down at the heavy black cover for some moments. He seemed to be getting his temper under control. Then to Maka's surprise, he smirked.

"You can't do it by yourself? Have you been sleeping?"

Wes tipped his head, that faint smile never leaving his mouth. "Albert only taught me one half, not the other."

Soul made a small indistinguishable sound in the back of his throat. With a heavy movement, he sat down on the bench. His hands stopped millimetres from the cover, fingers crooked as though poised to play the notes on top of it.

When he finally opened the cover, he still wouldn't touch the keys. He glanced briefly at Wes, and then at Maka. And briefly, just briefly, she saw his eyes soften. Then he closed his eyes.

The music was classical, this Maka knew. But it wasn't the kind of classical she was used to hearing from Soul. In his early days, his music had carried twisted notes full of tightly reigned despair, anger; insanity running just underneath the surface. As he'd grown older, his sound had changed subtly; the notes were still haphazard but there was something sweeter underneath the surface in his playing. But the truth was, Maka had never heard him play anything that was, for lack of a better term, straight classical.

It took her breath away.

As she listened, she became aware that the entire time she'd been listening to Wes play his violin, she'd felt something amiss. There was nothing wrong with Wes's playing; Maka's ear might have been untrained, but she knew that world-renowned performers didn't stay where they were for so long if their playing sucked. Rather, it was like Soul's piano had completed what heretofore might have been considered a whole piece. She hadn't noticed how hollow it sounded without the piano there as accompaniment. And it worked both ways.

Maka was a smart girl. She could put two and two together. She wondered just how much Soul had told Wes, or how much Wes had perceived.

Later that night, as they were settling in for bed, Maka asked Soul.

"He was always like that," Soul said with a shrug, stretching so his hands were linked together above his head and she could hear his joints popping. Rolling his neck to one side and the other, he gave a satisfied sigh as a series of cricks and pops sounded throughout the room. He climbed in the bed, joining Maka under the covers. Reaching out, he pulled her to him.

"I think it was his way of making peace," Soul said, closing his eyes.

"Yes," Maka agreed. It probably did have that meaning. She wondered if he had caught the other meaning, if she should ask. But Soul was already sighing, his breathing settling into an even rhythm that said he was pretty close to going over the proverbial fence into sleepy land. Maka settled her head in the crook of his neck and closed her eyes, feeling the steady thrum of his pulse against her cheek.

She thought Soul had gone to sleep when she felt the rumble of his vocal chords. "A music that only two people can create together, huh…"

Maka smiled. He'd known. He'd known, perhaps from the start. With this, something in her chest unfurled. Music and soul resonance were the same thing. You couldn't achieve a complete sound with just one instrument just as you couldn't achieve resonance without your partner. And there was something else they had in common, too.

She allowed one hand to squirm in the space between them, to clutch at Soul's shirt, just over where his heart was.

Music, like their resonance, spoke for itself. _I love you_, she thought. Soul's arm tightened around her.

It needed no words.

* * *

_Author's Notes: _This was in response to a prompt on the 30 Ballads LJ community. Maka once said dancing helps improve the synch rate of resonance between partners. As does Soul's piano. As does reciprocated emotion between two people, I believe.

I hope you enjoyed this one.


	3. Fragment 03

**Unfinished Fragments**

**By DarkAngel**

_Disclaimer: _I don't own it. It all belongs to Atsushi Ohkubo. Let me reveal my mad inner fan girl to you all by saying that if I could marry the man, I would.

* * *

One of the first things they taught you when you enrolled at Shibusen was that wavelength compatibility and personal compatibility were not one and the same thing. A meister and weapon could be complete opposites in terms of personality, outlook on life, sexuality, or whatever other factors a person could name and still make excellent partners if their soul wavelengths synched to a certain degree.

This was the reason why Soul and Black Star, although best friends, couldn't work together as partners. It was also the reason Maka and Soul worked so well together. Where Maka was the bookish one whose hobbies included puzzles and reading, Soul preferred going for rides on his bike or playing b-ball in the afternoon. Where Maka could be stupidly reckless and (to Soul's resigned aggravation) hair-trigger impulsive, Soul was the more level headed of the two of them, preferring to use his observations of the things around him to judge how best to handle whatever situation he found himself in.

Needless to say, "opposites attract" wasn't just a pithy bit of fluff that one could find in your average greeting card. Not at Shibusen, anyway.

It took Soul some time to figure this out. When he'd first arrived at Shibusen, he hadn't been sure what to expect. His family and the world he lived in really hadn't prepared him for the life a human weapon might have to lead. Soul's knowledge of Shibusen and human weapons was peripheral, in the same way that most people knew that trash was disposed of every Tuesday and Thursday, but they had no idea where it went or what happened to it afterward.

So that left him scowling around him as he took in the sight before him: he was at one of Shibusen's mandatory (only if you didn't have a partner) meet and greets, and he felt that he might as well not have left home for all that the same claustrophobic feeling was crawling down his spine and making his suit feel as though it were choking him slowly.

The room was packed with people wearing fancy evening dress and those ridiculous name tags (Soul had refused to don his, shoving it deep into the pocket of his trousers). He had no idea how to go about finding a partner; nobody had told him what to do. The only life preserver (if, by life preserver, you meant something that you gratefully caught just as the sharks were circling, only to discover the damned thing had several holes in it) he'd been thrown had been by Death himself, who had jovially told them to make merry and let nature take its course. There was indeed a god in this world, and he apparently liked dance parties filled with buffet tables and crappy jazz.

He didn't last half an hour. Downing his glass of juice in one gulp, Soul left his hiding place on the balcony and found himself outside the great ballroom. He breathed a sigh of relief as the doors closed behind him, muffling the music and the sounds of happy people clicking together left right and centre. Click, click, click.

But now what? The whole point of attending this thing was to meet a partner. Soul grimaced. Had he really come all this way just to run away? This was so not cool. Running a frustrated hand through his hair, he looked around.

The corridor stretched off into the distance. The left side led back to the main entrance, and the right was unexplored territory. The lighting was dim, but it wasn't as though there was much to look at anyway. There were doors. And a stretch of wood-panelled corridor. And another door. It went on like that for a while, from the look of things.

Sighing, he stuck his hands in his pockets. The little plastic tag was smooth against his fingers, reminding him of why he was here in the first place. Walking along the corridors at night like a second-rate phantom wasn't it. Still, his footsteps took him from the room filled with people to… wherever his feet were taking him. Soul came to a stop in front of a set of double doors. The heavy polished wood gave nothing of the room's contents away, and the only clue he had as to what this room was used for was the hanging placard above his head. 'RECITAL HALL'. Well, Shibusen had just about everything, didn't it?

The door wasn't locked. A shaft of light from a candle out in the corridor illuminated the room and bounced off the glass of hundreds of picture frames. He could see a big black shadow dominating the room. He made a soft sound that sounded something like an amused cough.

A piano. A grand piano, at that. He smirked. There was no getting away from it, it seemed.

He didn't pay any of the pictures hanging on the walls any heed. His attention was focused only on the black instrument before him. He came to a stop at the bench, his hands still in his pockets. He made no move to sit down.

It wasn't as though he hated music; that wasn't the reason he'd left home. But… For the third time that evening, he sighed. Sliding himself in, he took a seat at the bench. His fingers grazed the cover of the instrument. Well, what next?

His fingers moved of their own accord, prying the cover open and pushing it back. Black and ivory keys.

He would play one song, he decided. One song, and then he would return to that ballroom filled with people and attempt to be civil. Civilised. Whatever.

One finger depressed a key. A clear note pierced the silent air of the room. He placed his hands across the keys and ran through a quick scale. Pitch perfect.

The moment he started playing, he lost himself. There was no Shibusen, he wasn't a weapon, there was no need to find a partner. He was just himself, just Soul. There was no family, no grand expectation. All he had to do was play for himself.

He didn't know how much time had passed, but when the last note had faded from the air, Soul became aware of another sound. Clapping. Turning around on the bench, his eyes fell on a girl. She was around his age.

She was wearing what was quite possibly the most ridiculous getup he'd seen so far tonight, and that was saying something.

She wasn't wearing a dress, like the others. Instead she was wearing what looked like a school uniform: a yellow v-necked vest over a white shirt and green and white-striped necktie. There was a red plaid skirt there too, and to top the whole ensemble off, was a long black coat. He wondered idly if to her, this was a formal outfit. He didn't want to think about what casual would look like to a girl who wore pigtails to a formal event.

"That was really nice," the girl said, sticking her hands behind her back. She titled her head. "What was it?"

He considered telling her, but dismissed the idea almost as soon as it had entered his head. It was no one she knew, that much he was sure of. He shrugged, about to turn back to his piano. He had no idea who this person was, but he wanted her to know that her interruption was not welcome; he had come here to be alone, not make nice with someone he didn't know from Eve.

"My name's Maka," she continued, as though he hadn't turned his back on her. "What's your name?" Then, "Are you a new student here?"

This was the fourth sigh of the night. Figuring she wasn't going to go away until she was satisfied, he answered. "I'm called Soul. And yes, I am new."

"Soul? That's a… unique name," the girl named Maka said. Soul bit down a retort about how 'Maka' wasn't exactly like Mary or Jane, either. At least she didn't ask him if his name was real.

"Aren't you supposed to be at the party?" Maka continued.

Exasperated, Soul turned his attention back to her. "Aren't you?"

"Well, yeah." Maka tilted her head slightly to the side. "But I heard the piano and I ended up here." She gave a laugh. "By the way, what are you?"

"Huh?" What was she on about? What was he? He was Soul. The expression on his face must have been clear even for her to read, because she had the good grace to look faintly embarrassed and rephrased her question.

"I meant, are you a weapon or a meister?" Maka pointed to the tag stuck to her chest. "I'm a meister."

Reluctantly, Soul replied. "Weapon." He still didn't like this idea, the idea of being _wielded_ by someone. Not that he'd seen an actual weapon and meister pair in action, but somehow, the whole implied dynamic of the relationship seemed unfair to Soul. He didn't want to end up being someone's _tool_.

_Then why the hell are you here?_ Soul gritted his teeth. It had been with reluctance that his mother and father had found the necessary contacts to bring him here. He could just imagine their faces if he came home again after all the drama.

"Do you have a partner already?" Maka looked around, as though she would be able to find whoever it was Soul was supposed to be with. The girl sure asked a lot of questions. He rolled his eyes.

"No."

She seemed completely unfazed by his flat-voiced negative. "What kind of weapon are you?"

He really wasn't going to get rid of her, it seemed. He slumped a little, slanting his eyes up at her. "A scythe." His voice was modulated to impress upon her the fact that the only reason he was deigning to answer her question was that he was bored. Not because he wanted her as his partner or anything.

The girl clapped her hands together. "Are you really? My Papa's a scythe, too!" Even in the dim light, he could see a gleam in her eye he wasn't sure he liked. "Soul, do you want to be my partner?" She stuck out her had. Soul could only stare at it with an emotion that he couldn't quite name but it was partly amazement at her boldness and annoyance that she had the gall to think it would be that easy.

The girl waited for several seconds. She titled her head. "No good?" Her voice wavered with just the slightest bit of disappointment.

Perhaps it was her reaction to his supposed rejection. Perhaps it was the fact that she had gone out of her way to approach him, despite all the 'keep out' signs he'd put up. Or perhaps he was feeling far too lazy to go back to that room and try to mingle with other people when there was somebody here, offering to be his partner. He tried and almost succeeded to ignore the part of his soul that was telling him that it was more than all of those things. After all, fate and destiny and girly stuff like that weren't cool.

Instead, he turned back to the piano. He set his fingers upon the keys once more. "This is the kind of person I am." The music was dark, in the minor key. There was dissonance, crashes of sound and underneath, notes of despair and barely checked insanity. He grinned. What better way to scare the girl off?

But at the end of it, she clapped. She smiled at him, and the look she gave him was sincere, without pretence. "I can't really say I know what it was about," she said, referring to his song, "but it was beautiful."

Beautiful? Hadn't she heard the part about the song being who he was? He looked at her dubiously, but she continued smiling at him as though nothing was the matter.

"It was twisted and weird, but I really liked it," she said again.

Okay. She was officially weird. But Soul found himself smiling at her. He was okay with weird.

"Your turn," he said lowly. She tipped her head in askance. He jerked his head at the piano. "I told you all about me."

"Oh!" She looked downright bashful, the way she rocked back on her heels, her arms tensing behind her back. She laughed. "Well, I can't express myself with music, but I like reading. And um…" She looked up at the ceiling, as though an answer might come floating down at her. She gave up and looked straight at Soul. "I'm really looking forward to starting classes here. I like the colour pink. And… I want to make a Death Scythe that will surpass my Papa."

She wasn't his type. Not in the girlfriend sense, because he certainly wasn't thinking of her in that way. But she was as different from him as night was from day. He didn't consider reading a hobby: it was something you did. Pink wasn't his colour. He was more partial to red and black. He wasn't sure about the classes here, but if they were anything like the lessons he'd had from his tutors, they would probably be nothing worth writing home about. And hell if he knew who her father was.

But something in his soul was telling him that partnering with this girl was the right thing to do. _Two like-minded people can't possibly produce a sound as beautiful as this._ He remembered being told this when he was younger. At the time he hadn't really understood it; even now he couldn't really say he'd gotten the entire gist. But he took the hand she was holding out to him and mouthed that word that would bring them together.

"Partners."

* * *

_Author's Notes: _Yes, I know the meet-and-greet between Soul and Maka has been done to the point where the horse has been beaten ten times over. I wanted to hammer my nail in on the Overused Fandom Idea coffin too. I hope you liked it.


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